The Indian Premier League has unveiled a new paradigm this season. The players have blown away conventional strike rate math—nine teams have scored over 250 runs in 120 balls and there are 10 centurions already. Eerily, the Indian Political League is similarly upending existing templates—if records are being smashed on the ground, rhetoric is erasing the norms and boundaries of expression and assertion in E2024.
The effects are in stark contrast. Those tuning in to the matches are thrilled at the blitzkrieg of strokes, while those tuned into the ricocheting rhetoric are dismayed and even the parish of believers is filled with a sense of disquiet. As on the field, there is no dearth of lofty shots, mystifying and mind-numbing claims which stretch credulity with googlies and yorkers galore. And mind you #2024Elections is yet in the ‘power play’ stage, with only two of seven phases completed.
The context is riveted by troubling questions awaiting answers and will hopefully trigger conscientious introspection on the stated and unstated intent of political contestants and quality of conversations in the world’s largest democracy. Here are a few observations and posers to catalyse contemplation on the state of the nation.
Like the unthinkable and unexpected has transpired. Manifestos till date were essentially item songs stringing election campaigns. Surprisingly, manifestos have emerged as the theme song of mass campaign rallies. The Congress may not have quite expected the volume of interest in the idiom of its political promise; its Nyay Patra may have notched some traffic for downloads.
The lather in the media has been about whether or not the Nyay Patra explicitly states the confiscation of private wealth for redistribution. What is troubling is the underlining of euphemisms—mangalsutra, trespassers and those who birth many children—deployed as instruments of identification resulting in polarisation. The Congress may argue about what is explicit but in a fast-evolving election cycle politics is scaffolded by perceptions of implicit beliefs.
Like the shift in narrative and campaign messaging is stark. Following the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the general belief was that 2024 is a done deal. February saw the unveiling of the ‘Abki baar 400 paar’ slogan, with the BJP itself crossing the Rubicon of 350 on its own. The past week’s events haven’t altered perceptions about the trajectory, but it has triggered questions—even among the believers—on the numerical destination.
The question being discussed in living rooms is less about the character of political postulation and more about what caused the ratcheting of rhetoric. Popular theory defines this as a response to the low turnout of voters in the first phase and is overlaid on a rich tapestry of allusions of the geography of contests and location of strategic discussions that preceded the onslaught. The moot question is whether the blitzkrieg is being designed to ramp up voter turnout, or whether the ramp-up of messaging was aimed at galvanising the turnout of the cadre.
There is no mistaking that the contest between the BJP-led front and the opposition is marked by an asymmetry in capacity and capability worsened by the Congress’s affected articulation and struggle for space. The manifesto is decently detailed on some promises and patchy in parts. The declaration of a caste x-ray and a financial survey without explanation has opened up a can of claims and has been leveraged by the BJP.
Unsurprisingly, the debate is focussed on ‘inheritance tax’—which the BJP has highlighted and the Congress is laboriously denying following the utterances of family friend Sam Pitroda. The fact of inequality is a complex subject and has occupied the minds of philosophers ranging from David Hume and John Stuart Mill to John Rawls. History tells us that taxes on wealth and estate have been tried in India and discarded.
Any attempt to address systemic inequities must start with the gaps in policies—for instance, liberating agriculture from the curse of imperfect economic models. Sure, the caste census may illuminate the faultlines, but that information—something the UPA failed to make public in 2013—is at best only a starting point. Tackling asymmetries of ability and opportunity require policy intervention—investments in health, education and skilling.
The redistribution debate is waylaid by definitions. The debate must focus on can, and should, wealth be corralled and redistributed, or should mitigation be funded by revenues garnered. That said, there is redistribution visible on India’s balance sheet—in schemes and provisions of private goods. India spends over Rs 5 lakh crore on centrally sponsored schemes. The free ration to 81.3 crore, the health coverage to 50 crore, the provision of housing, the direct benefit transfers to farmers and women are all crafted from the receipts section and detailed in the budget.
For a change, the reality of a two-speed, K-shaped economy and how Indians are doing has found space in the political theatre. The truth about India’s poverty is embedded in one statistical fact—nearly half the workforce engaged in agriculture must depend on a sixth of the national income. This column has previously illustrated the political geography of India’s economy. There is no escaping the sectoral and geographic divergence and need for policy intervention.
Finally, the Congress seems to possess a talent for self-goals and an uncanny knack of contributing to the BJP’s campaign. In 2014, it was the ‘chaiwala’ refrain, in 2019 it was the ‘chowkidar chor hai’ slogan, and in 2024 it’s inheritance tax. India deserves better—a landscape of competitive ideas, not just an argument industry.
SHANKKAR AIYAR
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India
(shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)